PLEASE HELP/ADVISE ME!!!

[Kitty]

Can anyone help me?

Eight years ago I got a male neuter Maine Coone from an rescue centre - he was adult when I got him but I have no idea of his age (lets just say he's no spring chicken. He has never learnt any social skills and is nothing short of violent! He weighs in at 2 stone so his bloodlust can be terrifying. Except with me of course with whom he is all floppy and silly. We are inseparable best buddies and I'm absolutely besotted with him and I can't describe how much I love him - hence my distress at the moment.

About two months ago he went off his food for a bit and was making a 'gulping' noise when he swallowed. I left him alone for a bit and fed him a bland diet (he is an exceptionally bad traveller and becomes uncontrollable in his panic - for this reason I try and avoid the journey to the vet at ALL costs).

After a couple of days he is back to normal, taking up my bed, destroying the furniture and terrorising the neighbours! The gulping noise has remained so after a month I took him to the vet.

The vet could see nothing and said it was probably fur balls. He gave me Catalax and said to keep an eye out.

A month later he is still gulping - so we went back to the vet. He is eating well, not drinking any abnormal amounts, no change in behaviour, slight diarrhoea for a couple of days after he helped himself to the tube of Catalax but that cleared. No symptoms at all apart from this gulping noise.

The vet has said the only thing they can do is to use an endoscope (?) to look down his throat. He also wants to take an X-ray and take out a manky tooth. He took a blood test to see how he would cope with anaesthetic (results came back fine - slightly low 'something to do with liver' but nothing to worry about).

The blood test has cost me £100 and now the vet wants £500 to do the rest. He couldn't really give me a breakdown of the price (when I asked him if they just pluck these figures out of the sky!) and said I would get it with the bill. Well thats a lot of money isn't it? I phoned our local 'cheap and cheerful' vet who doesnt have the posh throat thingy but said he could do the tooth and the X-rays for £300.

Am I going mad or is this normal??

My situation is that at present my Mother has been kept in hospital for 6 weeks. Nothing has been diagnosed yet and its a nightmare as you can imagine. As a result I have had to cut down my working hours to two days to help with her appointments/looking after the house & family etc. So I find myself in need of some kind of divine intervention!

I'm not eligible for help from the PDSA as I do not receive benefits. I have approached the authorities who tell me I am not eligible for benefits as my Mother has not been 'diagnosed' as ill - to be honest I'm too tired to argue at the moment.

I'm sick with worry about him - obviously it needs looking at sooner rather than later if it is a growth of some kind. If something terrible happens to him because of a thing as trivial as money I'd never forgive myself. The ironic thing is that I'm told off every year by my family as I make extravagant donations to The Cambridge Cavy Trust, The Last Chance rescue centre (where I got him) and the RSPCA. Now I'm in a situation where I'm broke and stressed I can't find anyone who can help ME!

What I need to ask you, is for any ideas/similar situations? Does anyone know of any cat charities (I'm in Essex) that can help? Anything at all - please email me!

Many thanks in anticipation!

Kitty

[Ann]

Kitty,

Sorry to hear you're going through such a bad time at the moment. I live in the north east of England, so I'm afraid I have no knowledge of charities in Essex. However there are board members who live in the south of England and they may know of one who would be able to help you.

As far as the difference in vets fees, my understanding is that there is no set rule on costs. Each vet can charge as much or as little as they like. I certainly know of vets in this area who charge considerably more than other practices. Just because one vet charges less than another, it does not necessarily follow that the treatment is going to be inferior. Do you know other pet owners in the local area whose opinions you could ask of the various veterinary practices?

I hope you will be able to work something out and that things will improve for you.

Ann

[Maria]

Hi - So sorry to hear of your troubles.

I don't know too much about charities that might help. I suspect that they apply the same criteria and the PDSA, but it deosn't hurt to ask. The Blue Cross is in Victoria, London (sorry, I don't have a number) and Cat's Protection have branches everywhere.

I know that some vets (mine included) allow people to pay gradually. This might be a possibility. It might also be worth you calling other local vets/animal hospitals to get a second opinion, in terms of fees and treatment. (Although consultations would cost, and extra trips to a vet could cause more stress to the cat).

I don't know what others think, but I am sure that you could be offered a breakdown of costs beforehand, even if it is approximate. For instance, the main treatments, drugs etc must have a standard cost, even if there might be extra drugs etc that can't be anticipated.

I wish you the very best and I hope that whatever happens, your cat will be 100% again very soon. He sounds wonderful! I had a cat just like that - great with us, lethal to anyone else!

Maria

(An endoscopy is where a tiny camera is passed into the throat/gullet/stomach so that the vet can see if there are any problems.)

[Daisy]

Kitty
When we decided that the girls had to have their teeth done I asked our vet for a breakdown of costs. Naturally they couldn't give an exact price because they didn't know what needed doing until they got inside their mouths, but I was given a rough idea.

This is actually what it cost us + a few drugs during their 'operations':
The anaesthetic was £50.00 each (inc VAT)
Extractions £4.60 (inc)
Antibiotic injections 2 x £5.99 (inc)
and antibiotic capsules £3.10
Scale and polish £28.00 (inc)
All bits and pieces included the total cost for the two was £195.68.

And this is not a cheap and cheerful vet, in fact he's quite expensive, with a beautiful new state of the art hospital.

What I would like to know is why isn't this work covered by our insurance? After all it's not cosmetic and only done if the vet thinks it's important.

And I'm sorry Ann, I know you support the PDSA, but when we bought two peach-faced lovebirds for my recently widowed mother, I called them to ask if anybody would come out to trim claws and beaks etc. She is 78, partially sighted and on benefits and they said that they would either have to be taken to a vet or she would have to pay for a house call! As she lives 25 miles away I only get up there once a week to do things for her and the thought of trying to transport the large cage from her 1st floor flat to my car and then the nearest vet is not appealing! And before anybody suggests it - I'm sorry but catching them and putting them in travel boxes is a non starter.

Why isn't there anybody who can help those who really need it, we're lucky we only have to trap the girls and force them into their travel box and thanks to Barclaycard we've managed to defer the costs - but what about those who are less fortunate?

Are we supposed to have our dear pets put to sleep because we can't afford outrageous costs?

O.K. I'm off my soapbox now so you can all come out from your hiding places - and I'm sorry I can't give you any practical advice. When we lived near Southend we had a very good vet who was in to all sorts of alternative medicine - acupuncture for arthritis even - and he would always give us a break down of costs.

Marion

[Kitty]

Thanks everyone. To top it all I lost my job Friday as they really needed someone full time. So there you go!

I've got a cousin who is claiming housing benefits so I'm going to ask her to (ahem) adopt him. God help her when she opens his cage!!

Marion - I was watching something on acupuncture this evening. Can you tell me any more about it. He has slight stiffness going down the stairs and the vets wont give me anything to help as its not 'terrible'. Did it work? Expensive?

Thanks again

[Ann]

Marion,

Just to balance things out, I know PDSA has it's shortcomings, but they're mostly down to economics. It actually costs them £30 million a year just to maintain existing services and all the money has to come from donations ie they don't get any state aid. When you think of all the worthy charities out there also trying to get sufficient money donated to keep going, it's a tall order. None of the PDSA clinics does home visits and I've never heard of any plans to introduce it. The main objective at the moment is to expand sufficiently so that PDSA's services cover the entire country.

I know this doesn't help your Mum however and I do understand how frustrating it must be for you.

Ann

[Daisy]

Ann,
Yes I do appreciate all the good the PDSA do as I've seen the evidence on the television with pet rescue and animal hospital, but as this thread shows there are people who need help with their pets one way or another. I don't expect vets to help for nothing as they have businesses to run and have to make a living like the rest of us, but is there nobody who can help for the price of a donation?

As the breakdown of our bill shows£195.00 for treatment of two cats - including two extractions and follow up antibiotics - is nowhere near the £300 quoted to Kitty, perhaps they were going to give other treatment as well? It's all very unfortunate isn't it.

As far as the acupuncture goes, I'm afraid I was sent a cutting from the local paper about that after we'd moved away from the area so don't have any evidence. It did say in the article that he was performing this on a Great Dane and a horse and that they were responding well to treatment! When we moved in here one of my neighbours performed healing on Peanuts for her arthritis and it seemed to work for a while - I believe. She was better and a little more agile for a while after each treatment and would sit on this woman's lap very quietly whilst it was being done which was most unusual for her. Clutching at straws? Probably but see if you can find someone Kitty, they don't have to come to the house as they could do 'remote' healing so they wouldn't have to face the wrath of your Maine Coon.

Good luck with your search.
M

[Ann]

Marion,

I agree with you. Vets bills can be so steep that there are people who really can't afford them, but fall outside the scope of the major charities who have to have to apply eligibility rules strictly in order to stay within their budgets. And as you've pointed out, even if you take out pet insurance, it doesn't cover everything.

There are small local charities around and it may be worth Kitty checking with the local Council for Voluntary Service (CVS) to see if they know of any in her area. For example, we have one here called P.A.W.S. (People's Animal Welfare Service.) They hold a clinic once a week, where a qualified vet will give straightforward treatments at a very low cost. P.A.W.S. will also help with the cost of veterinary treatment which is beyond their scope. Usually they will pay the vet and the owner then pays P.A.W.S back weekly. Because they are very small and local, they don't have to be quite so stringent about applying eligibility rules. (They have a website at www.johnstone43.freeserve.co.uk/)

If the CVS can't help, other local animal charities may be able to provide some information. Certainly here, the local charities all tend to know each other because they keep meeting each other at fundraising events.

Ann

[Linda_Wells]

Marion,
Just a thought, but since you have now lost your job, are you not now eligible for some kind of benefit? The PDSA or RSPCA should both be able to help.
Otherwise, send him up to me and I'll take him to James, who charges £20 for a bloodtest and took out all of my stray's teeth for £30. (Actually he didn't charge me for Timmy BECAUSE he was a stray) He has never ever charged me to put a cat to sleep. he says I pay him to keep them alive.
Linda

[Ann]

Linda,

James sounds like a vet in a million!!

I can't speak for the RSPCA, but in order to be eligible to have a pet treated by PDSA, an owner needs to be in receipt of Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit.

Ann